Chilli powder, gun used to rob ₹19 lakh from cash van
DARING HEIST Two bikeborne robbers target cash van in Rohini, throw chilli powder in the eyes of the security personnel, shoot at the custodian while snatching the bag containing cash
In yet another crime that showed the vulnerability of cash vans, two men on a motorcycle robbed ₹19 lakh after shooting at the custodian of the money in outer Delhi’s Rohini on Friday afternoon.
Naveen, 31, got into a scuffle with one of the robbers to save the cash bag. He is admitted to a private hospital with a bullet to his cheek. Police said it was too early to say if Naveen would survive.
Rishi Pal, DCP (Rohini), said six police teams have been formed to crack the case. They are scanning CCTV footage.
The cash van was attached to Securevalue, a company providing cash management services, said the DCP.
On Friday, there were four men — a driver, a gunman and two custodians — in the cash van as they went about replenishing several ATMs in the city.
“In the morning, the four staffers had replenished around 18-20 ATMs in the outer and northern parts of the city before they ran out of the cash. They were then instructed to collect more cash from their office in Karol Bagh,” said the DCP.
Around half-a-dozen more ATMs were subsequently replenished before the cash van headed to a Union Bank of India ATM in Rohini Sector-24 around 2 pm. The van was parked on the roadside and the two cash van workers walked out with the bag when the robbers struck.
Wearing helmets, the two men rode their motorcycle close to the cash van before one of them got off and threw chilli powder in the eyes of the gunman, Brijesh Singh, who was sitting in the van.
He then rushed towards Naveen who was about to step into the ATM and tried to snatch the bag from him. Naveen held on tightly to the bag after which a mini tug-of-war ensued between the two.
The gunman, meanwhile, managed to pull out his singlebarrel gun and fire in the air as he was temporarily blinded. The firing and the resistance from Naveen drove the robber to desperation as he pulled out his gun and opened fire.
The DCP said the robber may have wanted to fire in the air to scare Naveen, but the bullet ended up entering the victim’s cheek. Having overcome the resistance and with the bag in his hand, the robber hopped on to the motorcycle on which his associate was waiting as they drove away.
The gunman, Brijesh, said he managed to load another round in his gun and fired again, but the robbers had escaped by then. Some eyewitnesses called the police even as Naveen was loaded into the cash van by his colleagues and rushed to a hospital.
Friday’s robbery is among several such crimes involving cash vans the city has witnessed in the last few years. In 2014, two bikeborne robbers had shot dead a cash van guard and made away with ₹1.5 crore in North Delhi’s Kamla Market.
A year later, the driver of a cash van made away with ₹22.5 crore in South Delhi’s Okhla. One of the biggest cash heists ever in India, the driver was arrested the next morning and the almost the entire cash recovered.
Last December, three men robbed ₹10 lakh from a cash van in East Delhi’s Pandav Nagar. More recently on March 30, the gunman of a cash van drove away with ₹32 lakh in west Delhi’s Mianwali, only to be arrested 10 days later.